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I recently picked up the streaming service DC Universe and saw The Batman was on it. I grew up with this series as a kid and decided to go back and watch it. Before I really get into my thoughts I will not compare it to Batman TAS.

First, I will try to look at this show as fairly as possible. One of the biggest complaints I have with it is character design. I really like some of the designs such as Robin, Batman, Clayface, Poison Ivy and Catwoman. They deviate enough to be unique but they're still obviously the same character. I think on the other hand you have characters like Joker, Riddler and Bane who just look strange. Riddler looks like Marilyn Manson, Joker is hard on the eyes and just doesn't measure up to other re-designs and Bane doesn't even look like bane and is just extremely ugly looking and once again just strange looking.

Next, the voice acting, story telling and art work all have their highs and their lows. I'm completely fine with the voice acting and deviating from the obvious choices for the actors. But I feel like some of the voices just don't feel like the character, my biggest complaint being the Joker at some points and Batman, especially during the episode where he gets poisoned and can't stop laughing, he sounds like 2 completely different people and its really high pitched. The story telling is suitable but at points becomes villain of the week and overarching stories are pushed to the back. The only consistent and important story line early on was Clayface and it was honestly the best the series I got in my opinion. Outside of that it ranges from weak villain of the week story telling to relying on the joker as the main villain and occasionally Catwoman or Penguin. Finally the artwork looks good and is different from the norm which I like. But its never super dark, gritty or insanely interesting to look at. But its a C+ overall.

Finally, I want to talk about the character archs. It feels like there's a lack of character archs or progression except for the main heroes and villains. The only characters to even get an overarching story or more added to their characters are the ones who show up every other episode, which is both a pro and con as mentioned above. I really enjoyed the story of Clayface and how he changes overtime. I enjoy how Batman changes and adapts in his actions and thoughts as more villains get introduced. The rest are either unimportant or weak (The Joker specifically.)

My conclusion is it's for what it is. You get a mix of everything early on but by season 2 its the joker show and fewer characters are introduced and it feels like fewer characters are recurring outside of the main cast. I still enjoyed it despite the flaws and would recommend giving it a chance and trying it out for yourselves. Finally, I did feel like I was sold some Batman action figures while watching.

Another violent sh*t movie and the weakest in my personal opinion. This film has a spectacular U.S. release by Reelgore which it really doesnt deserve. If you liked the previous films in the series for high body counts, cheesy gore and a story that has no plot then this film takes it and f*cks that up. First the body count is surprisingly low, compared to the other films in the series, from what I remember, those films all had higher body counts and could at least present a few excessive kills. If you're wondering if the filmmakers could make up for that with some unique kills, the answer is no. The kills are generally worse than the rest in the series and the closest we get to a unique kill is a guy getting is genitals cut off, which has been done before including on tv, ex: Sons of Anarchy. Maybe the film still has a loose plot where the butcher just kills people, nope. They try, and the important word is try to turn this film into a giallo, it went about as well as the time Jason Voorhees got turned into a slug in Jason goes to hell. Also the film tries to be story driven and tries to be a straight up giallo but it never works and there's no suspense in the entire film. Finally one of my biggest gripes is that the film seemed to have a larger budget than the rest of the films but the camera work is some of the worst I have ever seen. They try to incorporate the the bright color of giallo into the film with a green tone, it doesn't work since the film is super over exposed and everything is really bright or really dark. The camera work in the first one was better. Also seemingly unironically the camera man always has a close up of a characters face when their talking to the point all you see is their face, or the characters face is halfway out of frame, also not to mention a few dutch angles. The movies only saving grace is a few lines that aren't even meant to be funny but the delivery by the actors is so bad it makes you laugh and the soundtrack is really amazing. Only see this film if you're a completionist of the series and don't spend money on it if possible, unlike me, who is sadly a series completionist and likes to own a physical copy.

I finally watched this film after years of hearing about it. I won't include any spoilers but instead I'll look at the pros and cons of the film. The film has 2 really amazing elements. 1. The atmosphere is perfectly set. And through the atmosphere the film's rising tension is palpable. 2. The special effects are what make this film great. Every single effect still holds up and were done practically. Honestly a film with such a low budget shouldn't have such good effects. The film does have issues though. First the film over explains almost every detail and when it doesn't it feels accidental, making really cool concepts fall flat. Also I read that the film's first third originally had almost no dialogue so the film makers went back and added in all of the talk over the radio. I feel like it would have been better if they didn't add in all of the radio chatter and would help the first con seem not as obvious. Next the mixing of action film and horror doesn't really work very well and feels like the most generic of the action genre and the horror is bland outside of the two pros. Also the film moves at snail's pace and even though its only 80 minutes it feels like two hours. Finally at points the acting can be extremely sub par, one of the actresses seemed like she was reading from a script. Would I recommend this movie? Yes and no. I would say for any horror fan especially those who like slashers should see it once. For anyone just into cult films and not the biggest fan of horror i would avoid it. Finally if you want to see this film there's an amazing bluray release by scream factory and a good dvd release from 2007. Check it out if you dont have anything better to do.